


Falcon's Song

by ivanolix



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon - Book, Canon - TV, Gen, Grief/Mourning, POV Female Character, Shapeshifting, Wordcount: 100-1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-22
Updated: 2012-02-22
Packaged: 2017-10-31 15:36:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/345746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivanolix/pseuds/ivanolix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa finally makes it back to Winterfell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falcon's Song

Snow drifts over the rubble of Winterfell, marked only by black streaks of burnt rock. Brienne stands between her and the fallen castle, sturdy as any tower, one broad hand resting solidly on Sansa’s shoulder. It’s almost too cold to breathe.

Just a few steps away she can see them, the stones that fire had left almost untouched. Some worn, some with the sharp edges of a fresh carving.

Sansa finally breaks away from Brienne’s supporting touch and walks forward. There’s no sound but her heartbeat, the choke in her breathing, the crunch of snow beneath her boots—and almost pure silence when she finally kneels at Lady’s grave. Father had sent the bones back here, not to the dark crypt of the Starks but to the open graveyard of all others who were loved and lost. Sun and wind and snow mark this grave. Someday, so will summer rains again. Lady’s spirit will know more than those few brief months of summer, for Father’s kindness brought her safely here. Safely home as no one else was brought from that dread city.

Tears burn hotly down Sansa’s cold cheeks, and her trembling fingers touch the carved direwolf on the gravemarker with a long forgotten desperation. Grief swells in her chest like a wave of pain, so many griefs that she hasn’t had time to mourn. Ignoring how the snow soaks her skirts, Sansa stays kneeling and watches her hot tears make vain efforts to melt the snow. She grieves. She weeps. For father, mother, sister, brothers, friends and helpers and strangers who might have become family. Yet foremost is for the tiny grey pup who had slept in her bed, sucked milk drop by drop from her finger, barked happily at her joys and licked the frustration and sadness from her face.

Lady was the first grief. Sansa mourns, and seals at last the deep red wound in her heart.

But even Sansa cannot weep forever, and her eyes dry before the cold freezes her bones.

From death and gravemarkers, she looks up to the sky at the sound of a peregrine falcon. Dark grey, almost blue, Father and Mother’s houses combined, silhouetted against the ivory winter sky, the bird cries out. Sansa closes her eyes and listens to its sharp song.

_I am a little bird wandering the empty sky. I flee my enemies, but I cry. For hurt—and for justice. I am but one and strike no terror into the heart of dragon or lion. Yet my cry will be heard. I will not wander forever. Little bird, I am you, and someday our talons will strike home. For the dead. For all those who must stay alive._

“Lady Stark?” Brienne’s voice behind her is cautious, worried, as if she fears for Sansa’s mind.

Sansa barely hears her. The falcon calls again and she laughs harshly, raising her arms to the sky like wings. Then she leaves Sansa’s body behind and flies as a falcon, screaming her grief. Screaming her promise of the vengeance and hope that grief can become.


End file.
